Yoo lashes out at Obama nominee

NATIONAL SECURITY

File - John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this Thursday, June 26, 2008 file photo. A forthcoming government ethics report initially concluded the two key authors of the so-called torture memos, Jay Bybee and Yoo, who were officials in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration, had violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted the memos that allowed the use of harsh interrogation tactics. less

File - John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this Thursday, June 26, 2008 file photo. A forthcoming government ethics report ... more

Photo: Susan Walsh, AP

Photo: Susan Walsh, AP

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File - John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this Thursday, June 26, 2008 file photo. A forthcoming government ethics report initially concluded the two key authors of the so-called torture memos, Jay Bybee and Yoo, who were officials in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration, had violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted the memos that allowed the use of harsh interrogation tactics. less

File - John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this Thursday, June 26, 2008 file photo. A forthcoming government ethics report ... more

Photo: Susan Walsh, AP

Yoo lashes out at Obama nominee

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Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, fighting a suit by a prisoner who accuses him of approving unlawful detention and torture, is taking aim at his detractors, including President Obama's nominee to head the office where Yoo once worked.

In papers filed Friday with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Yoo's attorney dismissed the UC Berkeley law professor's critics as uninformed academics or Democrats with political axes to grind.

Republicans and a few Democrats in the Senate have held up her confirmation because of her work for an abortion-rights group and her criticism of the office's approval of interrogation methods under President George W. Bush.

Johnsen, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, has written that Yoo's memos approving waterboarding and other painful interrogation practices violated legal standards and the office's tradition of impartial advice.

In a 2006 law review article, she proposed guidelines for the office that stressed its duty to stand up to the president. A group of lawyers supporting the suit against Yoo said the guidelines reflected a long-standing policy that he had violated.

Estrada also cited the Justice Department's report last week concluding that Yoo committed no professional misconduct in his memos. He did not mention earlier findings by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility that Yoo gave Bush one-sided advice.

Waterboarding

Yoo worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. One of his memos approved waterboarding of terrorism suspects and said the president may have the power to authorize torture.

The appeals court is reviewing U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's refusal to dismiss a lawsuit by federal prisoner Jose Padilla that accuses Yoo of approving his allegedly illegal detention and devising legal opinions that approved his harsh treatment.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in 2002 and held for nearly four years in a Navy brig, accused of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb." He was convicted of taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to extremist groups and sentenced to 17 years.

While in the brig, Padilla said, he was subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stress positions, kept in darkness and blinding light and threatened with death. His suit says Yoo exceeded a lawyer's normal role by planning detention policy, as a self-described member of Bush's "war council," and then providing legal cover in his memos.

In his court filing, Estrada denied that Yoo had approved torture, said Yoo had not been involved with Padilla's treatment, and argued that the lawsuit would "deter qualified lawyers from entering public service." He called Yoo a "respected legal scholar."

Federal support

The Obama administration has taken Yoo's side, saying courts should not meddle in national security.

Several groups of lawyers have urged the court to let the suit proceed. One brief by legal ethics professors stressed the importance of applying ethical standards to lawyers advising the president. Signers included former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso and one of Yoo's UC Berkeley colleagues, Robert Cole.

Estrada described them as "purported ethics scholars" and called their analysis of Yoo's opinions "absurd."